Black and White Lodges

The Black Lodge Entrance at Glastonbury Grove, located in Ghostwood Forest, near Twin Peaks.

The Black Lodge and White Lodge are extra-dimensional, connected places, the Black Lodge being a place of darkness and evil, while the White Lodge is a place of goodness. The lodges seem to be connected through the "Red Room" as seen by Agent Cooper in a dream, where he sees himself 25 years older sitting in a chair. The Native American policeman Deputy Hawk says that the Lodges are from the mythology of his people.

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It appears that those who are submitting to the corrupting influence of the Black Lodge can at times briefly, and involuntarily, exhibit this influence to others through a bizarre appearance of a corpse-gray skin tone combined with rotted teeth. Leo Johnson witnesses this appearance when he sees Windom Earle arrive with a bag filled with spiders that he intends to torture Leo with, in which Windom's face has this appearance. Harold Smith also witnesses this appearance of Laura Palmer when she begins to behave aggressively towards him, saying the words "fire walk with me". Finally, Leland also gets this appearance just before entering the Red Room. The distance a person is from the entrance circle physically seems to determine its effect on that person: the effect usually corrupts the person's soul, making those easily corruptible become malicious and twisted.

The secret society of the Bookhouse Boys pledges to aid each other against the undefined "evil that lurks in those woods", beginning before the murder of Teresa Banks and the investigation led by Cooper of Laura Palmer's murder and its many consequences and implications. This evil was eventually concluded to be the Black Lodge itself.

When the Giant gives clues to Agent Cooper, including "The owls are not what they seem", the woods around Twin Peaks emitted this as a transmission. This transmission was revealed by Garland Briggs and that the next morning that transmission was followed with another communication saying "COOPER" several times.[1]

When Jupiter and Saturn meet, one entrance to the Lodges is located at Glastonbury Grove, near Pearl Lakes, in the Ghostwood National Forest surrounding the town of Twin Peaks. Its location is indicated by the petroglyph in the Owl Cave. It is a pool of a substance that smells like scorched engine oil, it is surrounded by a ring of twelve seemingly young sycamore trees. However, the age of the trees is unknown, as they were striplings of equal size when encountered by Dwayne Milford and Andrew Packard in 1927.[2] In the final episode, The Log Lady in a rare coherent non-metaphoric statement made at the sheriff's station presents Dale with a jar of the same substance, claiming that her late husband (a logger who died in a fire) brought it with him one day from work and said it was used to create a portal between two worlds. This implies that it is a means of access to the Black Lodge; however, there was no apparent use or need for the substance when Dale found the portal and entered it, following Annie Blackburn, who had been abducted by Windom Earle.

Briggs knows from his abduction that love and fear open the entrance to respectively the White and the Black Lodge. When the above requirements are met and one approaches the pool in Glastonbury Grove, red curtains seem to materialize out of nowhere which leads into the Red Room.

When the gateway is breached with the near conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, and with the gateway partially open, before Bob comes out, leading the way with his right hand, struggling to reach from his world into that of Twin Peaks, the right hands of Cooper, Pete and others shake before he manages to escape.

The ritual conducted by BOB and MIKE during the murder of Laura with 12 candles around a pile of dirt is of similar design.

Major Briggs, the Log Lady and Carl Rodd's experiences show that one can be "abducted" without being at the Lodge entrance. The Log Lady was in the woods when she disappeared and the Major and Cooper were camping in the woods at the time of his disappearance. The major's disappearance was accompanied by a flash of a white light, the sound of a giant owl and the “vague shape in the dark.” Major Briggs claims he was at the White Lodge, and there is no clear evidence of him affected by the Black Lodge, aside from just being near it. Upon his return in aviator uniform, he had almost complete amnesia of the events of the past two days but still could feel his memories, and that smells and sensations were palpable. In his own words "Everything is known to me, yet somehow beyond my reach."

When Briggs, the Log Lady, and Carl returned they had markings on their body. When combined, Briggs's and Margaret's together reproduce the picture of the Owl Cave. These events tie all three disappearances to the Lodge.

When under the influence of Earle's haloperidol, Briggs says "Taht mug uoy ekil si gnimoc kcab ni elyts... Taht mug uoy ekil..." which is "That gum you like is coming back in style...that gum you like", backwards.[3] Which further proves that Major Briggs visited a Lodge.

It is probable that there are entrances in other locations around the world. Before Phillip Jeffries' surprise appearance in the Philadelphia FBI offices, he is in the lobby of The Palm Deluxe hotel in Buenos Aires, where he has rented a room. He boards an elevator and instead of getting off on the floor where his room is, he ends up in Philadelphia on February 15, 1989 after having been missing, according to FBI records, for near two years. He claims to have found something at Judy's, in Seattle, whom he then "followed" and to a meeting. This meeting above a convenience store has an entrance for the spirits to reenter the Red Room. Jeffries also mentions a ring.

The doorway picture given by Mrs. Tremond to Laura also leads into the Convenience Store.

Alleged by Aleister Crowley to be one of the planet's seven gateways to hell, the Devil's Gate in Arroyo Seco is similar to Glastonbury Grove. A Native American tribe called the Tongva lived near it and called it the Hell Gate while the Nez Perce were close to Glastonbury Grove. Douglas Milford felt the same animalistic fear in both places. Jack Parsons first tried his Thelema rituals to bring the goddess Babalon, "the Mother of Abominations" there.

The weekend just before Roswell incident, in Jornada del Muerto desert, New Mexico, Parsons tried to open a second gate he found to bring forth "The Moonchild".

This area is accessible in dreams as experienced by Cooper and Laura, who shared the same dream on several occasions.

After following Earle into the Lodge, Cooper meets the Man from Another Place, who refers to the Red Room as the "waiting room", possibly a link between the two Lodges. Then, the Waiter gives Cooper a cup of coffee that keeps changing state: liquid, solid, liquid again, and then to a consistency similar to that of the Glastonbury Grove pool. The transformations of the coffee may represent time passing normally, slowly, and not at all. Man From Another Place exclaims "Wow, Bob! Wow!" upon seeing Cooper's coffee turn into the scorched oil substance.

When the Man says "Fire walk with me," the realm erupts into flames and descends into flickering darkness, arguably indicating that Cooper has finally entered the Black Lodge.

The place where Major Briggs was abducted, The White Lodge according to him.

Briggs says that the key to gain entrance to the White Lodge is love.

Deputy Hawk describes the White Lodge as:

"My people believe that the White Lodge is a place where the spirits that rule man and nature reside."

Windom Earle relates a fairy-tale-like story about the White Lodge which is replete with edenic imagery, suggesting that the White Lodge belonged to a time now lost or forgotten.

"Once upon a time, there was a place of great goodness, called the White Lodge. Gentle fawns gamboled there amidst happy, laughing spirits. The sounds of innocence and joy filled the air. And when it rained, it rained sweet nectar that infused one's heart with a desire to live life in truth and beauty. Generally speaking, a ghastly place, reeking of virtue's sour smell. Engorged with the whispered prayers of kneeling mothers, mewling newborns, and fools, young and old, compelled to do good without reason ... But, I am happy to point out that our story does not end in this wretched place of saccharine excess. For there's another place, its opposite:"

Earle's description of the Black Lodge moves from the past tense into the present tense, perhaps indicating that it has replaced the White Lodge.

There are stories and clues that suggest the White Lodge exists or at least existed, and one is Major Briggs's claim that he had been there but didn't remember more of it than seeing "a huge owl".

It has the appearance of the Red Room with flickering blackness. There is an endless black void behind the curtains and a black liquid below the floor that leads to a "non-exist-ent" space-looking place. Each chevron line on the floor is able to move up and down independently.

Briggs says that the key to gain entrance to the Black Lodge is fear.

Deputy Hawk describes the Black Lodge as:

"There is also a legend of a place called the Black Lodge.The shadow-self of the White Lodge. The legend says that every spirit must pass through there on the way to perfection. There, you will meet your own shadow self. My people call it 'The Dweller on the Threshold' [...] But it is said, if you confront the Black Lodge with imperfect courage, it will utterly annihilate your soul."

Windom Earle relates a past-tense story about the White Lodge which is replete with Edenic imagery, suggesting that the White Lodge belonged to a time now lost or forgotten. He then describes the Black Lodge in the present tense, perhaps indicating that it has replaced the White Lodge:

"A place of almost unimaginable power, chock full of dark forces and vicious secrets. No prayers dare enter this frightful maw. The spirits there care not for good deeds or priestly invocations; they're as like to rip the flesh from your bone as greet you with a happy "good day." And if harnessed, these spirits in this hidden land of unmuffled screams and broken hearts would offer up a power so vast that its bearer might reorder the Earth itself to his liking."

The Lodge's dynamics are difficult to describe. Time seems to have no meaning in this dimension and space is fractured between similar rooms linked by similar narrow corridors of red drapes. BOB is shown to rewind time to prevent Earle from stabbing Cooper, the reason being that Earle was overstepping his own rights in the lodge.

Someone in the Black Lodge can communicate with those that are not: When the good Cooper is trapped in the Lodge, The Man gives The Ring to Laura Palmer in her dream, although she was already dead when Cooper arrived. Earle mocks Major Briggs when he is inside the Black Lodge via Sarah Palmer.

An angel appears to Laura when she is in the Lodge with Cooper.

Inhabitants of the Lodge speak in a warped dialect of English and often speak in riddles and non-sequiturs.

The presence of doppelgangers is possibly the most unsettling feature of the lodge. Doppelgangers are identical to their real-world counterparts, with the exception of glassy-colored eyes. Living and dead people and even The Man from Another Place are shown to also have a doppelganger. The full function and position of the doppelgangers in the Black Lodge is unknown, though there is a hierarchy implied for inhabitants of the Black Lodge: "inhabiting spirits," the strongest being BOB, and doppelgangers who are represented by The Man from Another Place's one. They probably are the shadow-selves or 'Dwellers on the Threshold' of those entering the Black Lodge that are mentioned by Hawk.

In the meeting seen by Jeffries, the Man from Another Place and BOB haggle for Garmonbozia. MIKE claims his Garmonbozia along with the Man from Another Place in the Black Lodge after Laura's murder, which is granted by BOB. Garmonbozia is a form of currency in the Black Lodge (Pain and Sorrow) and is manifested usually as creamed corn.

The coffee given to Coop might be a test to see if he should go to the White or the Black Lodge since the Red Room transformed into the Black Lodge only after this event.

The Black Lodge is, evidently, the source of every oddity and unnatural feature of some people in Twin Peaks (prophets, having super strength, etc.) and modifies social behavior, causing negative emotions and discord. Most people are unaware of this effect.

All "suspected" inhabitants of the White Lodge appear eventually in the Black Lodge or The Waiting Room. Including The Giant and Waiter appearing beside the Man from Another Place, the pale horse and even an angel. All of the clues and so called "help" offered by the Man From Another Place, the Giant, Mrs. Tremond and her grandson which help to solve the murders only bring the main characters closer to discovering, and finally entering, the Black Lodge.

An oft-recited chant from the series reads:

Through the darkness of future pastThe magician longs to seeOne chants out between two worldsFire walk with me

To Lynch, curtains opening seems to him like going into another world.[4]

For the international pilot (reused for Episode 2), Lynch asked cinematographer Ron Garcia to make it so that the curtains would glow, which gave a red tint to the room for these episodes. Garcia also made the bird figure shadow using a cardboard.[5] The same red tint effect was done for Fire Walk with Me but not for episode 29. In the revival, the curtains are noticeably opaque and do not let light go through anymore.

The Waiting room has a statue of the Venus de' Medici behind the colored armchairs, while the corridors have a statue of the Venus of the Venus de Milo. Though 25 years later, the arm's doppelganger took the form of an armless Venus of Arles in the corridor instead.

In the waiting room, the small Art Deco green glass desk lamp next to the right of a black armchair with motifs is a Saturn Lamp model designed for and sold at the 1939 New York World's Fair.

In Episode 2 and the International Pilot, the floor of the Red Room is more brown and dirtier than other incarnations of the room.

Cooper sits in the black armchair with motifs. Two colored armchairs are between two lamps. The Man From another Place sits in the blue armchair while Laura and the Giant sit in the red armchair to his left. Though Laura sat in the black armchair with motifs when her Angel arrived. When MIKE demanded his garmonbozia, the One-Armed Man was in the blue chair and for once the Man From another Place was at his left in the red chair.

In the revival, the black and grey armchair Cooper sits in does not have motifs anymore, but is still very different from the other two armchairs which are both black. The right armchair is padded while the other isn't. Phillip Gerard sits in the right padded armchair while Laura sits in the other. Leland sits in a single not padded black chair between two lamps at one point.

Dougie sits on a blue armchair with a different tint from the one before the revival.

In Episode 29, when Cooper speaks with Annie and Caroline's doppelgangers, there is an Owl Cave ring pedestal. When Earle asks for Cooper's soul, there are two Owl Cave ring pedestals next to each other, but when he does get stabbed, there is only one pedestal again. None of them have the Owl Cave ring. But in Fire Walk with Me, The Missing Pieces and the revival, a single pedestal is shown.

In the revival, the floor pattern is rotated 90 degrees; which is especially noticeable in the corridors.

Jupiter and Saturn could not actually meet at the periods depicted in the show. Between 1900 and 2100 the great conjunction happened at these times:

November 28, 1901, at 06:10:38

September 14, 1921 at 16:22:08

August 15, 1940 at 13:18:42

October 11, 1940 at 23:17:26

February 20, 1941 at 19:14:02

February 18, 1961 at 14:42:37

January 14, 1981 at 07:58:37

February 19, 1981 at 07:12:10

July 30, 1981, at 21:32:22

May 31, 2000 at 10:13:27

December 21, 2020 at 13:22:00

November 5, 2040, at 13:19:46

April 10, 2060 at 09:01:25

March 15, 2080 at 08:29:24

September 24, 2100 at 01:40:38

The Lodge's language may be seen as parallel to some versions of shamanism, where the inhabitants of the otherworld may sometimes speak backwards. It may also be seen as an attempt to represent a lack of language, as would be the case of a purely spiritual universal exchange — which is ultimately decoded by the receiver in a mostly familiar manner (in this case the English of the show's intended audience). This is supported by having the hard subtitles, which make a point that the language being heard is not English per se, thus justifying translation.

It remains unclear whether the White and Black Lodges are disparate realms. They could be interpreted as one and the same place, a possibility hinted at by the mirrored black and white tiling throughout the lodge and the Giant saying "One and the same". This notion is consistent with the themes of duality which characterize the Lodge, reflecting the concept of Yin and Yang.

A common conception of the Black Lodge is that it is a realm of complete evil which has usurped, absorbed, or occupied its White counterpart with the possibility that the White Lodge has become the red waiting room of the Black Lodge (still enabling benevolent spirits and angels to manifest themselves there), or that the waiting room is a neutral location, and the action of the inhabitants therein determine procession to either the Black or White Lodge. This implies that in the Lynch-world there is a great myth of heaven, but heaven is either an old belief or a place of once great goodness swallowed by hell, and the only place that really exists and has influence over people is hell.

The red curtains, zig zag floors and bright spotlights of the White and Black Lodges have also appeared in most of David Lynch's films before and after his work on Twin Peaks. It suggests that Lynch may view their influences as ongoing in his narrative worlds. Such movies include Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire.